One Track Mind

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On August 25th, Felix Da Housecat will release He Was King, his whopping tenth studio LP in a career which now spans a decade and a half. Despite this longetivity, Felix is most recognized for one album: 2001′s Kittenz and Thee Glitz. The record, which premiered at the height of the electroclash boom, featured Miss Kittin on a slew of tracks and became a staple of the genre’s massive (albeit short-lived) popularity. Afterwards, the house pioneer soldiered on, releasing a handful of albums and mixes of intelligent house-centered music to an appreciative if dwindling audience. With his new one, Felix Da Housecat is undoubtedly hoping to regain some market share courtesy of the recent electronic Renaissance being enjoyed by indie music fans (and if anyone should be lucky enough to cash in on all those dancing hipsters, he is as worthy a candidate as any).

The first single from He Was King, “We All Wanna Be Prince,” is exactly what it sounds like: an unironic ode to the man in purple. Felix and a female vocalist proudly sing, “We can’t help ourselves / We all wanna be Prince” over a slick groove that has as much to do with The Revolution circa 1983 as it does with Felix’s house music pedigree. There is a cool, almost modest texture to the number. An insistent synthesizer bassline taps out the tempo on every beat over a Spartan, nearly unchanging drum machine rhythm. As the song unfolds, others synths enter the mix–flowery ones which swoop in and wave their arms gracefully, crisp saws which yelp out every now and then, and a couple of times during the track, the crunchy, arpeggiated kind we’ve come to expect from the more danceable end of the electronic music spectrum.

Something pleasant about the tone of “We All Wanna Be Prince” is that it manages to not take itself too seriously despite its lionizing. Felix ensures this never comes anywhere close to sycophantic hero worship, but rather gives the “sexy motherfucker” his due as the inspiration for a whole new era of funky, sexuality-celebrating musicians. His moans at the beginning of the track are an unmistakable homage to Prince’s more guttural moments, and the whole song is lighthearted and brisk.

Felix Da Housecat’s chops are as potent as ever, and even if he lacks the innovative touch which once treated him so well, “We All Wanna Be Prince” shows he’s still capable of writing as catchy an electronic pop song as any of those who followed in his footsteps.